


Overwhelming Obstacles

by Thighkyuu



Category: X-Men
Genre: Blood, Mentions of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 04:30:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16885656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thighkyuu/pseuds/Thighkyuu
Summary: "So basically reader is the new x-men recruit. She can heal people but not fully back to health. (that’s another reason she’s at the mansion is so she can learn to use her powers fully.) … after apocalypse, reader helps heal peter’s broken leg. (I know in the movie it healed in like a day, but for the sake of my head-cannon I’ll just make up some bs like that Apocalypse did something weird to it or like idk) … One night peter asks why isn’t his leg healing faster and reader gets really upset/mad … Peter apologizes and tells her that she’ll get it one day and admits he likes her and she admits too. there’s just a lot of fluff and cute relationship stuff." - requested by captain-maaarvel on tumblr





	Overwhelming Obstacles

Overwhelming. That was the word you had chosen to describe your first week or so in the mansion. **  
**

Chaotic didn’t even begin to describe it; so much had happened in such a short span that you were having trouble keeping it all straight in your head. As the newest X-Men recruit, you had expected your healing powers would be tested, but not on your _first day,_  and certainly not on an  _actual hurt person._  It had been nerve wracking, even though you had known it was just a few small gashes and that you could heal those no problem. It was one thing to heal yourself, but it was something else to heal someone else while others watched.

   Outside of that, you hadn’t had to use your powers again - you told the professor that you only knew how to heal basic gashes and scrapes, despite having known about your powers for a couple of years. It was hard to obtain the level of focus it took to heal anything outside of basic cuts, and you knew you would need training before you were able to do anything more. Hence, your presence in the mansion. But having to use your abilities on someone on your first day was the least of the reasons as to why your first week was chaos. The main reason was tall, with silver hair, super speed, and a ridiculously shit-eating sense of humor.

   Peter Maximoff.

   It was impossible to live in the mansion and not meet Peter, at least, if Peter wanted to know you. He was everywhere all the time, always busy with something, whether it was video games, pranks, or actual work. It was Peter who’s wounds you healed your first day in the mansion, and since then it was as if he had made it his mission to befriend you. Not that you minded, of course. You didn’t know anyone else in the mansion besides the professor, and Peter seemed as good a place as any to start making friends. He was just a handful. It was hard to keep up with him, most of the time, but if anyone asked you would definitely tell them it was worth it.

   In your first week alone after meeting Peter, you had participated in three different pranks - all on Scott, who you met shortly after the first prank - as well as a wild trip to the mall and an… explosive… incident in Chemistry class that you had no desire to relive. You didn’t really regret any of it, though, and between Peter and your classes you managed to cultivate a group of friends in Scott, Jean, Kurt, and even Hank. Peter quickly became your best friend, however, and you spent most of your time with him.

   Over the next few months, you began to learn to control your power better, to learn to focus in on the problem and use your powers to fix it. It took closer to a year to figure out human anatomy and apply it to what you were doing. You found that flesh wounds were easier; you could reach out and feel the way a person’s blood worked and how their tissue connected and use that to knit up deep gashes and bullet wounds and things like that. Organs and bones were harder, more complicated, and you still had trouble with mending anything terribly complex, but it was progress.

   Eventually, as you got better, you got called in more and more by the professor to help keep mutants alive while they were transported to a hospital. You had been able to help a few, keep them alive. Most of those had lived. But there were others, people you couldn’t help, couldn’t save, and those people haunted your sleep.

 _If only I’d been better,_  you thought,  _if only I could control my powers better._

   Some part of you knew that that train of thought was self-destructive, but you fell into it anyway. You beat yourself up after each failure, pushing yourself to work hard, be better. You threw yourself into your studies, so much so that it was starting to affect your health a bit, but you didn’t care. At least, not at first. Not until Peter became your saving grace.

   He kept you sane, made sure you took breaks, made you eat. He made sure he told you that nothing would get better if you overworked yourself. You apologized all the time, thanking him for keeping you on track and healthy. It was a wonder Peter didn’t just give up, and you constantly wondered why he kept putting up with the mess that was your mind. You’d even felt yourself falling in love with him, though you didn’t want to admit it to yourself. It was all going well, overall. You were getting better, little by little, slowly gaining confidence in your abilities and figuring out how to do more and more with your powers.

   Then came Apocalypse.

   You had been absolutely, positively, overwhelmingly overwhelmed when everyone came back from the battle and you saw their injuries. Having been left behind when the others were taken, you had plenty of time to worry about everyone, especially about Peter. Not that any of them were defenseless, it’s just that you had a vague idea of what they were facing, and you didn’t want any of them to be hurt. Although you were fairly sure this was a futile hope, you could still cross your fingers and wish. Those hopes and wishes had been dashed when your friends returned to the decimated mansion.

   Most had scrapes, a dislocated joint here and there, a healthy dose of trauma, and in one specific case, a diagnosis of almost death - you thanked the heavens that you weren’t put in charge of that - but Peter was different. Normally, Peter’s injuries healed fairly quickly due to his abilities, but whatever Apocalypse had done when he broke Peter’s leg had rendered his abilities useless in this case. This left you with the job of trying to repair it. You’d never managed to repair broken bones before, but you did your best, coming to Peter’s room every day and working slowly but surely to repair small sections at a time.

   You hadn’t stayed that long the first time, only testing the waters with your power to try and heal a small section of the bones in his leg, but each day your visits got longer and longer due to Peter’s constant chatter. Not that you minded. He enjoyed your company, and you his, so you stayed longer and longer, working on slightly larger sections each time to delay leaving. Each time when you went to leave, Peter always whined, asking you to stay longer because he was lonely, and you always say no. Up until one night, about a week after your work began.

   It was later than usual, and between your exhaustion over the amount of energy you’d expended and Peter’s whining for you to stay, you caved and stretched out next to him in the bed. After that, it became a ritual. You would work on Peter’s leg and then stretch out in his bed, and the two of you would talk well into the night. A few days after this ritual began, however, you could feel Peter getting more restless than usual. It wasn’t hard to tell; Peter was used to being able to move all the time, and his restricted movement was causing all of his energy to get more and more pent up.

“What’s bugging you, Pete?”

“I was just… wondering why my leg isn’t healing faster. I mean, I thought-” He doesn’t get a chance to finish as you sit up suddenly in his bed, eyes blazing with anger as you train them on his face.

“Is my best not good enough for you? Do you think I’m not trying my fucking hardest, here? Do you even know how damned hard it is to figure out how to heal shit?” His eyes went wide and his mouth opened as if to say something, but you just kept going. “Do you know how much blood I have on my hands? How many people I couldn’t save because my abilities weren’t good enough? Do you understand how fucking hard that is on me to know I could have done more if I was better at controlling my abilities? I’m doing the best I can, alright?” You draw your knees to your chest, resting your chin on your knees, snorting softly. “How ironic that I have the ability to heal others, yet I have all this emotional shit inside me that I can’t heal.”

“Y/N,” Peter’s voice was soft as he said your name, and you felt the bed shift and Peter pushed himself up to a sitting position. “I’m so sorry.” You didn’t bother to look over at him, you didn’t want to.

“I’ll never be able to use my powers to their full potential,” you whisper, closing your eyes.

“Y/N! That’s not true! Didn’t you just say it was hard to try and control your power? You’ll get it one day-”

“When?” You open your eyes, your head whirling to look at him. “When? Because it’s been _months_  since I started learning how to control my powers, and I can barely heal your broken leg. It’s been over a week and I’ve gotten, what? Barely halfway done? What bullshit.”

“Everyone learns at their own pace,” Peter says softly, “I’m sorry for making it sound like I didn’t think you were good enough, I’m just so used to my powers helping everything heal quickly and… well. I’m sorry.” A silence stretches between the two of you for a long moment before you finally open your mouth to respond.

“I’m sorry I snapped.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, I was the one being insensitive. You’re doing the best you can, and I got impatient and made it sound like I was insulting your competency, which isn’t what I meant to do. I’m just frustrated.”

“I know you are, Pete, I’m just… sick of not being able to do as much as I know I could,” you mutter, resting your head back on your knees.

“You’ll get there, Y/N.” You could feel his eyes on you, and you took a deep breath.

“Will I? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.”

“You will,” he says firmly, and you turn your head a bit to look at him. “You will. You’ve already made loads of progress, and you’ll make loads more. It may take a while, but you’ll get there.”

“How do you know that?” You couldn’t possibly see yourself getting any better, being any more useful than a basic healer.

“Because I believe in you,” he muttered, leaning his head against your shoulder, “and I believe you can - and will - do it.”

“But why?” You looked over at him, desperate for an answer.

“Because I love you!” Both of you sat in silence for a moment, and you could tell the words had slipped from Peter’s lips, but they were out in the open now, and you had no idea what to say. Peter sat up straight, turning to look at you fully. “I love you, Y/N.”

“Oh,” you managed, your face flushing, “I- what?” You couldn’t process what he was saying, what he meant. It was Peter’s turned to flush now as he stumbled over his words.

“Well, I… I love you. A lot, actually.” There was a pause as you studied his face, unable to form words, and he watched you nervously. “Sorry, I can go. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot or make you uncomfortable.”

“Peter, this is your room.” He froze halfway out of trying to hastily shimmy out of bed. It wasn’t what you wanted to say, but it was all you could manage at the moment.

“Right, um, well I-” You took a deep breath, and then cut him off.

“I love you too, Peter,” you breathed, finally managing to say what you’d meant to say. You’d been harboring your feelings for a while, refusing to acknowledge them, until this moment when they came raging to the surface.  “I have for a while, I think.” Peter grinned, then scooted closer, draping himself in front of your feet.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, you fucking dork,” you say the words fondly, then stretch out your legs, laying them across Peter’s chest.

“I wasn’t kidding, you know. I really do think you’re going to get better at healing. In fact, I think you’re going to be one of the greatest.”

“Flatterer,” you mumble, though the words fill you with warmth. You lay down on the bed again, and Peter, moving out from under your calves, moves up to wrap his arm around your waist.

“It’s the truth,” he whispers in your ear, “if anyone can, my love, its you.” You fell asleep wrapped in his arms, happier and with more hope in yourself than you had in a long time.


End file.
